Volume 57 / Social Sciences

SOCIOLOGY: BRAZIL

PEGGY A. LOVELL, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh

ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTING TRENDS in the sociological literature produced
on Brazil in the mid-1990s is the increasing centrality of race. Issues of race
were examined by a small group devoted to research on social stratification,
whereas much of the literature reviewed in this volume considers race in shaping
all social relations. Leading studies examine the relationship between race
and violence, gender, identity, social movements, political change, labor, the
media and religion. The racial character of Brazil’s national identity
as inspired by Gilberto Freyre is the subject of a book which offers a new and
rich interpretation of his major works (item bi 97010227). Two provocative articles
analyze the interrelations between racial, social and cultural dimensions of
constructing black identity (items bi 95022415 and bi 96017540).

Feminist scholars continue to lead the discipline in their theoretical, methodological
and empirical analyses of the sociology of gender. Estudos Feministas is an
excellent journal of leading scholarship in this field. Studies on education,
work, family, domestic violence, protest, health, sexuality and political participation
have moved beyond a singular focus on women. Instead, gender is examined as
a relational concept where the emphasis is on the differential experiences of
women and men. Two historical studies are an analysis of coffee cultivation
challenging both “family-blind” and “gender-blind” analyses
of socioeconomic process and change (item bi 95008300) and a study of changing
gender ideologies (item bi 97010220). Other works provide important summaries
of Brazil’s feminist movement and women’s political history (items
bi 95007534 and bi 95018644).

Sociologists of Brazil continue to examine social violence and human rights
abuses. Centers for the study of violence have been established at several universities
including the Nucleo de Estudos da Violencia at the Univ. de S&tilde;ao
Paulo. Notable contributions in this area are an analysis of racial discrimination
in the criminal justice system (item bi 97010224) and two vivid accounts of
human rights violations (items bi 97010222 and bi 96021215).

Two traditional areas of interest have been religion and the environment. Sociologists
of religion continue to contribute a number of studies on the growth of Protestant
fundamentalist groups, cleavages within the Catholic Church, and religious behavior
and attitudes (items bi 95002416, bi 96009897, and bi 96001504). However, fewer
environmental studies were produced in this period, reflecting an overall decline
in attention to the social implications of environmental change.